Research unravelling the facilitating role of sleep for cognitive processes is nowadays mainly performed in adults. Neural activity patterns during NREM sleep like sleep spindles and slow oscillations have been shown to guide and time the reactivation, transformation and stabilization of memories. Whether and how sleep — especially sleep spindles — similarly plays a role in the development of learning and memory in children, still remains unclear and rather little is known about those relationships in the developing brain. Therefore, this short review highlights recent findings and developmental aspects of the relationships between sleep spindles, learning and memory as well as intelligence in children. It provides a detailed description about maturational changes of sleep spindles from childhood to adolescence, which might be an indicator for neuronal connectivity underlying efficient cognitive functioning. Furthermore, it gives an overview about what to consider, whenever recording, analyzing and interpreting these thalamo-cortical oscillations especially in children and adolescents.

如今，研究主要在成年人中进行，以揭示睡眠在认知过程中的促进作用。NREM睡眠期间的神经活动模式（如睡眠纺锤和缓慢的振荡）已被证明可以指导并定时记忆的重新激活，转化和稳定。睡眠是否以及如何睡眠，特别是睡眠纺锤，是否同样在儿童学习和记忆的发展中起着作用，目前仍不清楚，对发育中的大脑中的这些关系知之甚少。因此，这篇简短的评论重点介绍了睡眠纺锤，学习和记忆以及儿童智力之间关系的最新发现和发展方面。它详细介绍了从童年到青春期的睡眠纺锤体的成熟变化，这可能是潜在认知功能有效的神经元连通性的指标。此外，它概述了在记录，分析和解释这些丘脑皮质振荡时应考虑的事项，特别是在儿童和青少年中。